TOEFL Speaking 26: The Secret all the Expert TOEFL Teachers Know

[@marcoj3309]

Hello Micheal, thanks for the useful information you share with us. next week I have my toefl exam. I hope I'll get a good score and share it with you :)

[@Toeflresources]

Good luck! Let me know how it goes.

[@movingenglishlessonswithan2032]

This is what I’ve also realized. My students have to follow a very solid script to get 26+. It’s not only speed, it’s also vocab depth and organization of ideas

[@Toeflresources]

Indeed, it is easier said than done. I guess the point I am trying to make is that even with good vocab and organization, a slow delivery results in a low score.

[@movingenglishlessonswithan2032]

@@Toeflresources I agree with you completely. It’s also bothersome because it doesn’t really test fluency, rather, it tests how much you prepare for the test.

[@Toeflresources]

Yeah. Standardized testing has always been like that I guess. It is a debate that has been going on since before I was born. I suppose speed is a decent proxy for fluency, but only if there is a human rater to confirm that the content is actually decent. I fear what will happen when (if?) the human rater is dropped.

[@movingenglishlessonswithan2032]

@@Toeflresources do you know any human raters personally? A student of mine wanted to hire one as a tutor.

[@Toeflresources]

@@movingenglishlessonswithan2032 The raters are not allowed to work as tutors. But you can easily put yourself in their shoes. They only have the rubrics to rate by. There isn't any secret to how they score answers. They might have a few sample answers they can listen to now and then... but they just use the rubrics.

[@tarawat6414]

wow, the best secret of toefl speaking.

[@Toeflresources]

More to come.

[@holynadahjl]

Really appreciate giving all these tips to all your viewers. Another point to consider will be that will the scorers give the same score as the AI? Also not sure on how much the AI score affects the total score. The scores somtimes seem a bit random to me (10% or so), so I'm assuming that the human scorers have way more say in the total score.

[@Toeflresources]

Impossible to really know. But I suspect that soon the human raters will be gone. That's just a guess, though. I don't have inside information about THAT.

[@AkmKawserOfficial]

Damn ! Never realized that. Thanks a lot.

[@jerryl7220]

OK, thank you very much. I think this should be the right solution cuz I currently try to speak faster with less pauses and get a constantly higher mark on My Speaking Score.

[@Toeflresources]

Let me know how it works out. I would love to see your speechrater reports if you feel like sharing!

[@fredoonfarokh2965]

Thank you for your instructive videos. Can you determine an approximate speech rate? You spoke 149 words in 45 seconds, but I think this cannot be achieved easily. In fact, you spoke in the sample response faster than you usually speak!

[@Toeflresources]

I think I will experiment with that in the future. I am not sure what rate is necessary to get that magic score of 99/100. But, yes, I spoke faster than I normally speak. That's the whole point I am trying to get across here. Speak faster to get a higher score. Speak faster than your normal conversational level.

[@fredoonfarokh2965]

@@Toeflresources Thanks for your response. I wonder if there is a similar tool for writing?

[@Toeflresources]

Not really, but you can try the EdAgree tool over here: www.toeflresources.com/blog/free-toefl-e-rater-practice-at-edagree/

[@Nur-to2sj]

I would like to purchase credit but I don’t know how many credit enought to practice. And aldo I don’t understand what the basic, advance or ultimate mean. I have never taken toefl exam before. Please give more information. Thanks

[@Toeflresources]

Basic, Advanced and Ultimate differ in the number of credits you get. Since I don't know you, I am unsure of how much preparation you need. The more the better, I suppose.

[@Nur-to2sj]

@@Toeflresources ciredits don’t mean to measure level of my English only the number of the practice, right?

[@Toeflresources]

@@Nur-to2sj ok. I am unsure what your question is.

[@Nur-to2sj]

@@Toeflresources i try to ask you basic means that starting easy questions, advance means hard questions. I think you just try to say number of practice questions. I hope I explain well at that time.

[@Toeflresources]

Right. Basic, Advanced and Ultimate just refer to the number of SpeechRater submissions you can make. It does not mean the difficulty of the questions. Everyone gets the same questions.

[@conversandoando]

Hi, thank you for showing us all this and for your hard work. I have a couple of doubts about the results you've shown. When you presented the second answer, 24/30, values for fluency were low, but I was particularly surprised for Discourse coherence being 8/100. It was extremely low, I dare to say. Was it because of the absence of markers like "secondly" "for instance" or phrases like that? Would you say that that aspect significantly impacted on your overall score as well? Thanks in advance.

[@Toeflresources]

As I have mentioned here and in the other video, the "grammar" and "discourse coherence" scores seem pretty random. The SpeechRater isn't very good at calculating those measures, and they seem to have little to no weight.

[@dhonextv2267]

Thank you boss.

[@Toeflresources]

Any time.

[@raghadatoom8259]

Thank you for your effort. I have question, does the number of word affect the score ????

[@Toeflresources]

Yes, I think it does.

[@raghadatoom8259]

@@Toeflresources How many words should I speak???

[@Toeflresources]

I don't really have a figure. I just mean that longer answers tend to score better.

[@youngskywalker7163]

does this speaker's respond deserve much better score?

[@Toeflresources]

There is no "deserve," young Padawan. There is only above 26 and below 26.

[@freeae9170]

@@Toeflresources Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?

[@mirellamelo]

My personal opinion based on my experience: this tool is very inconsistent and unfair. My average was between 18 and 19 there , and in the actual test, I got 24 and 25 (I did it twice). So, honestly, I wouldn’t waste any money training with this tool. I felt anxious because of it.

[@Toeflresources]

If you are comfortable sharing I would love to see the reports it generated for you.

[@Toeflresources]

You can send it to me at [e-mail]. Or you can just paste the link here if you are okay with everyone seeing it.

[@abdullahmustafawi3165]

As always the best explanation!

[@Toeflresources]

Glad you think so! Let me know if it works for you.

[@JohnZiemba-q7u]

Some of the grammar scores were off the scale horrible. Even with a competent human grader averaging them up, they won't be close to accurate.

[@Toeflresources]

Yes. They really are. The AI seems to consistently suck at judging grammar. The good news is that it doesn't seem to impact the actual score very much. Note my perfect result, even with a bad grammar score.

[@ahmadamiri828]

You are the best!

[@Toeflresources]

You are too!!

[@soheylatalebi7841]

🙏🙏🙏